Persistence Pays : CSULB’s Mike Case Endured His Share of Setbacks to Achieve Baseball Success

It’s not something he looks back on fondly, but Mike Case, who has signed with the Colorado Rockies, a National League expansion club, will always remember his first organized baseball experience.

The former Cal State Long Beach left fielder was 12, and his mother had signed him up for Little League without telling him. Case, somewhat reluctant and plenty scared, showed up for that first practice in Yorba Linda wearing blue jeans and sneakers.

The other kids were decked out in baseball pants, cleats and caps, and you knew what they were thinking when they saw Case.

Who is this geek?

What followed wasn’t exactly a best-Case scenario. By mid-season, Case’s batting average stood at .000. Worse, he hadn’t even made contact.

Then, a breakthrough.

“Sometime around the middle of the season, I finally hit the ball and said to myself, ‘Oh, so that’s how you do it,’ ” Case said. “I ended up batting .415 that year.”

A legend may not have been born that day, but a good ballplayer was. Case went on to star at Troy High School in Fullerton, where he batted .400, hit 11 home runs and helped the Warriors win the Southern Section 3-A championship in 1987.

He earned a scholarship to Loyola Marymount, where a redshirt year and a major knee injury prevented him from playing in two seasons. In late 1989, he transferred to Long Beach, where this spring he was the team’s starting left fielder and an all-Big West Conference first-team choice.

“I was a shy kid, but my mom always knew I liked the game,” Case, a 23-year-old senior, said of his introduction to the sport. “I was scared and didn’t want to go at first, but she said, ‘Try it for a week, and if you don’t like it, quit.’ I liked it, so I stayed.”

He nearly left the game last summer, though. Case, a 6-foot-2, 185-pounder, had a good junior season at Long Beach, batting .385 with five home runs and 31 runs batted in. But by mid-season, his role had been reduced to that of a platoon player, starting only against left-handed pitchers.

Case began to doubt his ability after the season. He was also getting more involved with his father’s construction company and seriously involved with his girlfriend, Kim Corrigan, to whom he is now engaged.

“I thought baseball might be my ticket, but how was I going to make the pros if I couldn’t even start in Division I?” Case said.

Case was ready to leave the team when he met Long Beach assistant Bill Geivett for lunch last summer. But by the time it came to leave the tip, Case was still a 49er.

“He told me, You don’t want to say, ‘What if?’ ” Case said. “He said I might never have the opportunity to play again, so what’s one last year? He also said if I wasn’t having fun, I should quit. But there was still something there, so I pursued it.”

Geivett and Long Beach Coach Dave Snow told Case what it would take to become a full-time starter: make more consistent contact, hit to all fields, use his speed more and develop a more intense mental approach to the game.

“Basically, he’s done those things,” Snow said.

Case, who has also filled in at third base off and on, started 53 of the 49ers’ 58 games this spring. He batted .327 with 15 doubles, four triples, 11 home runs and 49 RBIs. Long Beach (36-21-1) won its first Big West title in 22 years but was knocked out of the national playoffs at the Central Regional.

Just knowing he was in the lineup every day put Case’s mind at ease. “I used to be a streaky guy--when things were going well, I’d be up there with the best of them, and when things went bad, I’d be down there with the worst of them,” Case said.

“I used to get down a lot after bad games, but I’ve been more positive this season.”

Few would have thought five years ago that Case would start for one of the nation’s best college teams, let alone be drafted by a pro club. Sure, he hit a lot of home runs his senior year, but Troy had one of the smallest fields in Orange County--310 feet down the lines, 340 in the gaps and 370 to center field.

Many were skeptical of Case’s power stats until the day he smashed a home run over the 375-foot mark in Dodger Stadium, helping Troy defeat Arlington, 7-4, for the 3-A championship.

“That’s up there as one of my best memories--it’s still the biggest thrill of my career,” Case said. “After I hit that one, a lot of people told me that it shut some people’s mouths.” And opened some eyes. Case had received no scholarship offers and had planned to enroll at Fullerton College--until the Dodger Stadium blast.

“I saw him hit that home run and no one else was recruiting him, so we jumped on him,” said Snow, then the Loyola Marymount coach.

Case was a redshirt his first season (1988) at Loyola Marymount, and injured his knee the next fall. Reconstructive surgery repaired the knee, but it was a year before Case could play again. He sat out the 1989 season, focusing on his rehabilitation program, but he had grade problems and was academically ineligible. Then Snow, who had taken the Long Beach job the previous season, called again, persuading Case to transfer to CSULB after the fall semester of 1989.

Case can play outfield and infield and even pitched the ninth inning of a 13-11 loss to UCLA, allowing two hits but no runs. Snow believes such versatility will enhance Case’s professional prospects.